"Well, then, we'll go alone," the Freiherr interrupted her, impatiently. "You know who I am,—I was here before."
"Yes, yes; you are the old lord from down there at Dönninghausen, who wants to buy Tannhagen," the old woman replied, and her little brown eyes twinkled more maliciously than before. "You'd better let it alone; you'll have no joy of it."
"Come, why should we stand listening to the old witch?" said the Freiherr. "We will look first at the upper rooms; they are not in as poor repair as these down here."
As he spoke, he went out into the hall; the rest followed him, with the old woman hobbling behind. "Of course you can buy Tannhagen," she went on, eagerly. "My son says that the last lord of Tannhagen is dead, and there must be some one to own it. But why do you not leave it as it has been? To turn out my son, who has always paid his rent punctually in bad years as well as in good ones, is a sin and a shame; yes, it is a sin and a shame!"
The Freiherr looked angrily round, and, without speaking, offered his sister his arm to mount the narrow wooden staircase that creaked at every step.
Otto and Johanna tried to appease the old woman, who, however, did not, or would not, understand what they said.
"Oh, let the strangers come!" she croaked. "They'll have no joy of it. We Brinkmeyers belong to Tannhagen. My husband's father and grandfather, and heaven knows how many before them, have held this farm, and they were all known for sober, industrious folks, who knew what they were about. And my son is just the same, and whoever turns him out from here,"—she raised her clinched fist and shook it at the lovers,—"whoever turns him out from here will be punished for it, and will have as little peace, living and dying, as they have left to me, poor old woman that I am."
Involuntarily Johanna recoiled. At the last words she grasped Otto's arm, and while the old woman struck her crutch upon the hall floor and sent shrill menaces after them, she hurried him up the stairs and into the first room that opened upon the corridor, closing the door after them. They heard their grandfather and Aunt Thekla talking in the next apartment; but instead of following them Johanna stood still. "What a terrible reception!" she said, and she repeated in an undertone the old woman's words, "Let the strangers come. They'll have no joy of it!"
"Johanna, surely you are not superstitious?" Otto exclaimed.
She had gone to the window, and was looking gloomily out into the dripping rain.